Odds and ends

• The United States and Mexico are in talks to improve the environmental standards for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the Houston Chronicle reports. Cuba was not included in the talks, because (we can guess) that would have been a concession to the Castro regime. Meanwhile, Spain’s Repsol is talking more concretely about its plans to drill again in Cuban waters; it will be in August or September (Reuters). The Reuters story gives us the first indication that another of the companies that have leased blocs in Cuba will actually drill: Malaysia’s Petronas has an option on the Repsol exploration rig when Repsol is done with it, and will use it in its bloc.

• AP: Ho-hum, a concert featuring Cuban artists is canceled in the Miami-Dade autonomous region, this time with a few twists: One reason for the cancellation is that the concert was too close to the Bay of Pigs anniversary; the venue owners claimed they thought they were getting Mexican music, not Cuban; and this quote from a county commissioner: “We understand free speech and will defend free speech but not when public facilities and public funds are being utilized.”

• The Forward on Cuba’s very small Jewish community, where one member says, “We have good relationships with the goyim. This is a paradise for religions. You can’t find anti-Semites [here]. No one cares.”

• Palabra Nueva editor Orlando Marquez writes that it’s time to face up to the problems in Cuba’s health services, and for authorities to be open to new approaches in a system that still has great professionals, but was built with Soviet bloc resources that long ago stopped flowing.

• A March 17 commentary (in English) on the Razones de Cuba television programs on the USAID/State Department Cuba democracy programs by BBC correspondent Fernando Ravsberg. He’s nonplussed, and waiting for an Alan Gross episode.